


Welcome to the Baltimore Zoo

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Other, That buffalo from American Gods shows up, Will is also these things, Zoo, everyone lives in a zoo, hannibal is a panda, hannibal is also an octopus, when I say this is crack I mean it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: Dr. Jack Crawford is a zoologist and panda breeding expert at the Baltimore Zoo. He finds himself frustrated with a giant panda named Hannibal and a red panda named Will, because they only want to mate with each other.





	1. Meet the Cuddle Husbands

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why China would loan so many pandas to one American zoo. Just roll with it.

Dr. Jack Crawford, America’s foremost expert on panda breeding, shook his head as he watched Hannibal and Will cavorting in the enclosure.

“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled.

“It’s adorable,” Freddie Lounds said. As the zoo’s social media coordinator, she was in charge of the Twitter and Facebook accounts. “You know their fans call them the Cuddle Husbands.”

“You’re the one who started that,” Jack reminded her. He sighed again and rubbed his temples. “The Chinese government is going to be SO PISSED if we can’t get Hannibal to pass on his genes after all the promises we made.”

He shuddered at the memory of past breeding attempts. They had introduced a female panda named Bedelia to Hannibal, but he had only attempted to eat her. Like, seriously cannibalize the poor thing. If she hadn’t grabbed a fork from the keeper and jabbed him with it, he may very well have succeeded.

And attempts at breeding Will had failed, as well. He’d had one encounter with a panda named Margot, but then Margot only wanted to spend time with another panda named Alana. After that, Will had gone back to cavorting with Hannibal.

“This is the gayest zoo I’ve ever worked at,” Jack said.


	2. Everything They Do is Cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Crawford learns of a new development at the Cuddle Husbands exhibit.

When Jack got to the zoo that morning, the office was abuzz. He sighed and shooed away the small throng that had gathered around the livefeed monitor.

“Oooh, did the Cuddle Husbands do something cute again?” he asked with as much sarcasm as he could muster, which, as it turned out, was a lot. “Newsflash, people! _Everything_ they do is cute! They’re _pandas_!”

“This is something new,” Freddie said. She turned the monitor so he could get a look.

Hannibal and Will were still asleep in their habitat, curled up with each other as always. But when Jack peered closer, he noticed a small bird nestled between them.

“What in the hell is that?” Jack asked.

“That,” Freddie said, “is a quail chick.”

“How did a quail chick get into the panda habitat?”

Freddie shrugged. “All I know is our Facebook followers are already calling it Abby–-Abby Quail, to be precise.”

“God damn it to hell,” Jack groaned.

He couldn’t get Hannibal or Will to propagate their own species, but they seemed perfectly happy to raise a bird together. A goddamn  _bird_!

“Never mind what the Chinese government will do,” Jack said. “At this rate, my old alma mater is going to revoke my degree!”


	3. Proof of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panda fans are worried about Bedelia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a [true story](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/18/478514486/taipei-zoo-releases-proof-of-life-photo-of-panda-rumored-to-be-dead).

Jack Crawford had to push through a throng of reporters when he arrived at the zoo Monday morning.

“Are the rumors true?” asked one woman. “Did Hannibal the cannibalistic panda eat his mate Bedelia?”

A chorus of questions and disdainful accusations went up from the others.

“Bedelia is fine,” Jack said. “We’re currently installing a second Panda Cam in her habitat so you can see for yourself.”

He ducked into his office, where Freddie Lounds was waiting for him.

“The Chinese government is demanding a proof-of-life photograph,” she said. “It’s all over Twitter this morning.”

“Oh, for crying out–” Jack sighed and rubbed his temples. “Fine. Fine! Get me as many of today’s newspapers as you can find.”

“One step ahead of you, boss,” she said, handing him both local and national papers.

He gathered them up and headed towards Bedelia’s habitat, passing by Hannibal and Will’s on his way. The two of them were curled up together in a hammock, Will’s head tucked under Hannibal’s chin. When Will suddenly twitched as if having a bad dream, Hannibal hugged him tighter.

“If you two weren’t so damned cute,” Jack said under his breath, “I’d send you back home myself.”


	4. A Spectacle of Tentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Crawford is called in to the invertebrate exhibit when a pair of octopuses begin to exhibit some unusual behavior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the octopus art of @byk23 and @hannibalssketchbook on Tumblr.

Kade Purnell, invertebrate specialist at the Baltimore Zoo, was beside herself with frustration and confusion. She didn’t want to have to do it, but she saw no choice but to call in Dr. Jack Crawford from the so-called “Cuddle Husbands” habitat.

“I really don’t know much about cephalopods,” Jack said. “I don’t know what on earth you expect me to do about the… _situation_.”

“You know about same-sex mating behaviors in captive environments,” Purnell pointed out.

Jack  sighed. “Not again.”

She led him to the octopus tank. The water was still murky with the many ejections of ink that had taken place overnight.

Jack peered through the thick partition, straining to see through the swirling darkness. He just barely saw a large, bulbous fleshy sac–no, two sacs. “They look like balls,” he said. “Like low-hanging old balls.”

Purnell rolled her eyes. “Normally, the filtration system would pump out the ink, but Cordell and Mason have been screwing with it somehow.” Off Jack’s quizzical look, she explained, “Those are two of our other octos. They’re not as bad as Hannibal and Will, but they have their moments.”

Jack took a step back from the tank. “You named these octopuses Hannibal and Will? Why in hell would you do that? We already have pandas nicknamed that!”

“That’s WHY we named them Hannibal and Will,” she said. “After they started exhibiting this kind of behavior, the names just caught on. Come on, I’ll show you the cam footage.”

She led him into her office and played back clips from the past few days.

“This is highly unusual for any octopus species,” she said. “They’re normally extremely antisocial, preferring to be alone. Only when it’s time to mate do males seek out a female, and use a specialized arm to insert sperm into her siphon. Even then, he risks being cannibalized by her.”

“The things we do for sex,” Jack said with a low whistle. He watched the video clips for a while. “You said the males use a specialized arm–one arm, singular.”

“That’s right.”

“But it looks here like the smaller octopus is trying to jam all his arms into the other octopus’s siphons.”

“That’s right,” she said again.

After a few minutes of tentacle-on-siphon action, the large octopus shuddered and suddenly expelled a cloud of ink.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Jack asked.

“Nope,” Purnell said. “It’s normally a defensive technique, but here it looks a lot like–”

“Like ejaculation,” Jack finished for her. He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, Purnell, except that there’s just something about this zoo. The animals here are just hella gay. I know I’m using unscientific anthropomorphic terms; don’t lecture me.”

As he continued watching the clip, the smaller octopus also quivered and released a jet of ink like his mate.

“What am I supposed to do?” Purnell asked.

“Start thinking up a cute name for your exhibit,” Jack said. “And don’t go copying the ‘Cuddle Husbands’ thing I’ve got going on in the panda habitat.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see [this post](http://avegetariancannibal.tumblr.com/post/146011849974/octo-hannigram) for back story and credits


	5. Drunken Panda Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does Jack keep getting pandas from China??

Jack Crawford had just settled into his favorite chair in front of the fire with his favorite brand of hot cocoa when he got a text from Freddie Lounds. He knew it had to be bad news, because not even Lounds was bold enough to text him on his one day off otherwise.

Jack sighed.

Apparently he was wrong about Lounds.

  


After few more texts, Jack was assured that everyone was okay, more or less, but that social media users were already “demanding” that Tobias be moved to another facility. He’d been trying to befriend Hannibal for weeks–without any success but causing Will a great amount of distress meanwhile.

Perhaps, Jack thought, he could place Tobias in an enclosure with Franklyn the raccoon, who’d been pitifully lonely ever since Adam left…


	6. New Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some new and apparently mythical creatures show up at the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It helps to know a little bit about Bryan Fuller's new show, American Gods, and about @byk23's Hannibal AU known as the [Cannimal Sanctuary](https://byk23.tumblr.com/)

Jack Crawford considered himself an open-minded man. In his time at the Baltimore Zoo, he’d seen a panda named Hannibal attempt to cannibalize another of its own species. He’d seen that same panda essentially shack up with a male red panda, and then witnessed the two of them somehow adopt and raise a quail together. He’d even witnessed two octopuses having weird, non-reproductive, ink-spurting siphon sex and then stood back flabbergasted as they shot to internet fame.

But nothing had prepared him for the zoo’s latest arrivals.

“What even _are_ these things?” he asked.

Freddie Lounds, probably for the first time in her life, was speechless. She could only stare in baffled silence at the wooden crate that had shown up on the zoo’s office doorstep overnight.

Inside the crate were two…well, they were some kind of animals. One of them looked like a black-coated stag with raven feathers sprouting from its neck like a mane. The other was an unusually small bison, no bigger than a Saint Bernard dog. Most troublingly, though, was the fact that the little bison’s eyes were shooting flames. The two creatures stared at him calmly.

“Maybe–maybe they’re not real,” Jack said. “Maybe they’re some kind of animatronic display or something.”

He reached out to touch the bison, but it gave him a warning shake of its shaggy head. Jack drew back with a gasp.

“I think they’re real,” Freddie said.

“Was there a shipping manifest?” Jack asked.

Freddie skirted around the crate until she found the paperwork attached.

“It says they’re on loan from the Cannimal Sanctuary,” she read. “They’re supposedly a Ravenstag and a…well, this can’t be right.”

Jack took the papers from her and read for himself. “Swiggity Swuffalo, the Nightmare Buffalo? What in the hell!”

The bison–the _buffalo_ –snorted and stamped its front hooves, seemingly in recognition.

“Does it say anything about why its eyes are on fire?” Freddie asked.

Jack flipped through the rest of the pages. “It’s all just feeding instructions and this note.”


End file.
